Questions and Answers

Jim McKinstry and Amy Rich

Q: I've installed a Solaris 8 jumpstart server with the following sysidcfg file (IPs changed to protect the innocent):

 name_service=DNS { domain_name=my.domain.com

 name_server=192.168.1.2,192.168.1.3 }

 system_locale=en_US

 timezone=US/Eastern

 terminal=vt100

 timeserver=localhost

 security_policy=NONE

 network_interface=primary { netmask=255.255.255.0 protocol_ipv6=no }

When I try to jumpstart a client with:

boot net - install

the installation goes into interactive mode. If I use name_service=NONE, then the installation completes without intervention. I thought that using DNS and specifying the domain and nameservers should result in a hands-off install. Am I doing something wrong?

A: Are you installing the jumpstart client on a network that can't reach the name servers (e.g., having a private non-routable network just for jumpstart installs, but specifying the real DNS servers)? If the jumpstart client can not reach the nameservers, I believe it asks for manual intervention. In addition to that, you may want to check for typos in the IP addresses and perhaps try a sniffer to see what's happening on the wire.

Q: I would like to forward all mail, including local mail, to the central mail server for our UNIX systems. No local mailboxes exist on the clients. The clients are running Solaris 8. The mail server should then decide whether the address is local or forward it to the company mail server. The forwarding to the main company mail server works for non-local mail, but how do I stop the client from delivering mail locally on the clients?

A: On every client that should not ever deliver any local mail, you want to use the nullclient configuration.